Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942)

A prominent social figure and a member
of the fabulously wealthy Vanderbilt family, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
is best known as the founder of the Whitney
Museum of American Art in New York City. Herself one of the better
American sculptors of
the day, she began her career as an artist and collector in the late 1890s,
and went on to win a number of important commissions, including the Washington
Heights War Memorial, New York (1921), and the sublime Women's
Titanic Memorial (1931) at Fort McNair, Washington DC., a marble replica
of which was purchased by the French Government for the Musee du Luxembourg.
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney remained a modest woman, active in a variety
of philanthropic activities such as her important financial sponsorship
of the International Composer's Guild. Her principal legacy however, is
the Whitney Museum, which now has the finest collection of 20th century
American art in the world,
and is one of the best art museums in
the United States.

WHAT IS ART?
For a guide to the different,
categories/meanings of visual
arts, see: Definition of Art.
For a list of different categories,
see: Types of Art.

Biography

Born Gertrude Vanderbilt in New York City,
she was the daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II (18431899) and Alice
Claypoole Gwynne (18521934) and the great-granddaughter of Cornelius
Vanderbilt. In keeping with her social status, she was educated by private
tutors and also at the exclusive Brearley School, New York City. In 1896,
at the age of 21, she married the banker and world-class polo player Harry
Payne Whitney (18721930), who went on to inherit a fortune in oil
as well as interests in banking. She had three children, Flora (1897),
Cornelius (1899), and Barbara (1903).

Sculptor

After her third child, Gertrude Whitney
took a trip to Europe. While she was in Paris she experienced at first
hand the creative whirl of Montmartre and Montparnasse, and was inspired
to take her art more seriously. Accordingly, she studied sculpture
at the Art Students
League of New York, and also under the great Auguste
Rodin (1840-1917) in Paris, and went on to open studios in both New
York (Greenwich Village) and Paris (Passy).

While not quite attaining the status of
American sculptors like Alexander
Calder (1898-1976), Louise
Nevelson (Louise Berliawsky) (1899-1988), David
Smith (1906-1965), Louise
Bourgeois (1911-2010), or Donald
Judd (1928-94), her works attracted critical acclaim both in Europe
and the United States. The most famous sculptures by Gertrude Vanderbilt
Whitney include: the Washington Heights War Memorial (1921), and
the Women's Titanic Memorial (1931), as well as the monument to
Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody Memorial) (Cody, Wyoming), and the
Monument to the Discovery Faith (Huelva, Spain).

Collector and Patron of the Arts

Whitney's patronage began in 1907 when
she converted her New York studio in Greenwich Village into an exhibition
space and gallery for young painters and sculptors. In 1914, she purchased
the adjoining property, at 8 West 8th Street, turned it into galleries
for young artists to display their works, and opened it to the public
as the Whitney Studio. She followed this up by founding a number of other
charitable organizations, including the Friends of Young Artists (1915),
the Whitney Studio Club (1918), and the Whitney Studio Galleries (1928).

Founder of the Whitney Museum

Meanwhile, ever since the early 1900s,
Whitney had been collecting a range of American painting and sculpture,
and by the late 1920s was regarded as a serious collector. Indeed, guided
by her advisor Juliana Force, she had accumulated almost 700 works of
American art, which in 1929 she offered to donate to the New York Metropolitan
Museum of Art, as the city's newly opened Museum
of Modern Art, maintained a preference for European modern
art. Amazingly, her generous offer was declined by the Met, whereupon
she determined to open her own museum, exclusively for American Art. This
she did, and in 1931 The Whitney Museum of American Art opened under the
direction of Juliana Force in a group of brownstone buildings at 10 West
8th Street. Its remit was avant-garde
art by contemporary American artists. The Museum is now housed in
a purpose-built townhouse, designed by Marcel Breuer and Hamilton P. Smith,
at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in Manhattan's Upper East Side.

In 1932, Whitney instituted The Whitney
Biennial, an invitational event devoted to artworks created in the preceding
two years by emerging American painters, sculptors and contemporary artists.
The event has become a showcase for contemporary
art by less well-known artists from across the United States.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney served as President
and Chairman of the museum until her death in 1942. She was succeeded
by her daughter Flora Whitney-Miller, and thereafter by her granddaughter
Flora Miller Biddle.

For more about the personalities involved
in the evolution of painting and sculpture, see: History
of Art.

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see: Famous Painters.
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